


Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent

by yoonseh



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: All AU, M/M, all different worlds, all wowkwan, but it's basically a fic that is inspired by lewis capaldis newest album, every song is a different one shot, read the summary and notes for more details, soooo this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21588193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoonseh/pseuds/yoonseh
Summary: Every chapter is inspired by a song from Lewis Capaldi's album "Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent". I wanted to write a one-shot (5k-10k) for each different song on the album. I am in sort of a writer's block so I felt that maybe this could pull me out of it. Each fic will be about Byeongkwan and Sehyoon and will all take place in different worlds. Some will be modern, supernatural and more historical. They will be loosely based on the songs, based on whatever main lyric I pulled from that specific one. Whenever inspiration hits I will write and they will not be done in the order of the album. Also, just a warning but this album is very lonesome and most of the songs are sad. Each fic is going to be angsty but I promise will always end happy. :)Here we go:1. Grace: I was only just a breath removed from going to waste, until I found salvation in the form of your grace.
Relationships: Kim Byeongkwan/Kim Sehyoon | Wow
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooo, I am in a writer's block and hoping this will pull me out of it. The first fic is about Sehyoon who is an artist who does restorations but has trouble creating his own original work because his life and feelings are very bland. Bring in Byeongkwan who shows him the colors of the world and gets him to truly love painting again, but Byeongkwan also struggles too. The first fic is based off of the first song on the album "grace" which talks about finding someone that you find salvation in and not wanting to just be another's mistake. They are each other's grace and salvation but they struggle to be what they need. 
> 
> Like I said these are loosely based off the songs, I took some liberties for each plot. I have each one outlined and I pulled whatever I was feeling from them. This is what came to me when I listened to this song. I hope you enjoy and that I can get some inspiration for my other fics.

Grace: I was only just a breath removed from going to waste, until i found salvation in the form of your grace. 

Sehyoon needed something to throw that wasn’t covered already in paint. He didn’t need to piss off his landlord more by covering his walls in splatters of black.

He looked over at his bed in the corner of his apartment and thought how punchable the pillows looked as they lay innocently, haphazardly placed when he rushed out this morning. His boss had needed him at the gallery, set up for the event that night was a bitch. So was his boss, but he liked that. It meant things got done, it meant that the disappoint she would show in her face tonight would crush him. 

It was now 5:00 in the afternoon and he was expected at said party in, he looked down at his watch, less than 3 hours. He was told to bring a piece to show so that he could start getting buyers interested in his original work. 

His boss had encouraged him to start giving himself credit and showing who he actually was as an artist. He had wanted to please her, she had given him so much since he started working for her. He had told her he would bring his best work in. There was a problem with the statement though.

Sehyoon, by nature, was a follower, never had the urge to take the lead in anything. That was why even in his job his personality was reflected. That was why he went to an art college and got a degree in restoration. 

He received a slip of paper that granted him all the knowledge of painting, of how to use the tools, an art history background he actually used, but without all the extra creativity that required originality. 

His friends would tell him that he was stupid for thinking that he wasn’t creative, that he couldn’t possibly be that stunted that he could never produce his own work. The past year had proved them wrong and him so clearly and frustratingly right. 

His boss thought he was churning out original after original when all he was doing was starting something and then trashing it because that’s where it belonged. He felt like he needed to dunk himself in a trash can, he was beyond being artistically blocked. 

The last time he had painted or drawn anything that was his own was his senior year of high school when he had met one of his best friends, Kang Yuchan. Yuchan smiled like the sun and Sehyoon painted yellows and oranges for 2 months during senior year.  
The first time he had ever created anything original he had been in kindergarten and Junhee and Donghun had decided that they had to be best friends. He drew them all on the playground holding hands, he had used every color in the box. His teacher looked at him with shock on her face, he couldn’t have known that not every kid drew fully formed people at 5. 

That was when it was new, now life was just as bland as it had been since college. He would describe it as monochrome. Blends of grays and slates and silvers, shades that weren’t even truly colors creeping at the corner of his vision. Depression setting in like a rock in the bottom of his stomach. 

When he was a kid he couldn’t be slowed down, everything had its own shade and he defined everything in his life by the colors it held. He didn’t have a favorite color as a child, it was whatever pinkish blue the sky was, the shade of his best friend’s eyes, the swirls he saw when he got high enough on the swings to feel his stomach drop out from beneath him. 

Nothing was ever the right color in Sehyoon’s drawings. His cows were purple and his pigs had to match the rainbow and his skies where whatever color he was feeling at the moment. 

Until he was 13 he described his moods on a spectrum. 

Now, he had lost the habit, but if he was to define the color he had been in since college it would be blue. Not blue as in Azure or Cornflower or even a strong Royal Blue but the blue his professors liked to call independence. It was the opposite of freeing, it felt frigid and cold. 

That’s how he saw the world now, plain. He’d lost whatever part of him had been the wondrous child that had floated through his youth with paint stained hands and clothes covered in splashes of color. 

He lowered his head as the canvas in front of him mocked him, his boss truly thought he had been creating originals. And while it wasn’t a lie, none of them were actually completed or good or worth any amount of praise whatsoever. 

He felt like giving up completely but knew that he was expected to show something off. He got up from his stool and headed toward the kitchen where he washed the black paint from his hands and then splashed water on his face. 

He grabbed a towel to clean up under his nails and wipe down the counter. He would get his paints when he got back from the event. He made sure they were closed so that they didn’t dry out and went to shower the afternoon away. 

The least he could do was try to look decent tonight, not that he had anyone that he needed to look good for. He told himself it never hurt to try though. 

Before he headed out for the evening he looked through the paintings he had, the strokes looked frustrated and angry. His eyes caught on one that could have been decent if he had spent a little more time on it. 

It made him sad, looking at it made him want to lay down on his bed and possibly cry for at least a year. He took a breath and grabbed it, he grabbed his keys and headed out the door. By the grace of whatever was out there he hoped he could get through this night without feeling like a total failure. 

He walked into the gallery and saw that the party was getting started. He was told to show up with everyone else since he helped get it ready that morning. He held his painting to his chest, having wrapped it up in the car. 

He made a beeline for his boss. She was dressed in a beautiful black gown, lace covering her arms, teardrop diamonds adorned her dress. She smiled at Sehyoon when she spotted him, he wasn’t ready for her smile to drop when she saw the painting. 

She kissed him on the cheek and placed a small hand on his bicep. She squeezed his arm and pulled away, she looked at him expectantly. He nodded his head towards the offices and she guided him to the back. 

Once they were away from onlookers Sehyoon ripped the paper off the painting and placed it on an easel in a corner of her office. He waited for her mouth to droop and her eyes to show their disappointment. 

Her mouth did droop, but her eyes were shining. “Sehyoon, this is…” She brought a hand to her chest and he swore she could see tears. “This has so much emotion in it. I can feel your frustration in the strokes. It’s beautiful.” 

His eyes widened at her compliment. “Are you sure it’s good, it seems so....” Sehyoon stopped and breathed. 

His boss turned to him. “It’s so what?”

He brushed a hand through his hair. “It’s so uninspired.” 

She walked up to him and cupped his cheek and gave him a watery smile. “Oh, I think it’s anything but.” 

She patted his cheek and brushed an arm down his suit. She straightened his bow tie and patted down the lapels of his suit like his mother used to do. 

She turned one more time to look at the painting and let out a breathy laugh. “Uninspired.” She said the word in disbelief and turned back to him. “I hope you find the confidence in yourself to see the true color of this work.” 

She grabbed the painting carefully and then made her way out of the office. Sehyoon stood there almost breathless. He wished he could see what she had seen. To him the painting was just a brush put to a canvas. He didn’t know how her eyes saw more than that. 

Sehyoon walked out of the office and watched as buyers and artists mingled, wine flutes in their hands. People with too much money hanging off of each other’s arms. He loved art, but the people involved sometimes made him sick. 

***  
He was on his second glass of wine when the lights to the gallery flickered, Sehyoon knew what that meant. He made his way to the auditorium with the rest of the crowd. There was a performance piece being put on by a ballet company. 

Sehyoon didn’t know much about dance, especially ballet but he relished the chance to sit. His eyes started to droop about 5 minutes into the act. He hadn’t been sleeping, worrying so much about what he was going to produce for his boss. 

The music was putting him to sleep until he felt a tap on his shoulder, his boss was sitting next to him smirking. He sat up straighter in his chair and looked to the stage. It was empty, a spotlight positioned off center of the stage. 

Sehyoon waited and watched that spotlight. It matched his mood. Whiting out everything else, the dark theater contrasting with its shine. 

Music started as he imagined sinking back down into his chair and taking a nap. The song hit one note and the artist’s voice came through the speakers. A male dancer entered the stage, he seemed desperate as he slid across the floor. Scrambling, pretending like he was trying to grab a hold of something that wasn’t there. 

He was a ballet dancer, but where the other performers were rigid and sharp, his dancing was pulsing freedom. 

Sehyoon felt the need to move closer, his fingers twitched as he watched the dancer. He was in nothing but tight black pants. His skin pale in the light, glistening as sweat gathered along his ribs and neck. 

He couldn’t look away as he was overcome with color. Pink and pink and pink. The dancer’s hair brightened everytime the stage lights touched it. It was pastel, soft and airy. The strands reminded Sehyoon of the daisies his mother would keep in the kitchen. She let them bathe in the sunlight. He would sit and soak up the warmth with them when cold tried to inch into his skin.

They were Sehyoon’s color when he was feeling settled, comfortable. It was the color that he used when wrapped up in love. He knew it was a cliche way to see it but he couldn’t help it. 

It was the only thing he saw now as the dancer pushed color into his vision, as he pushed emotion back into his breath. 

The dancer fell into his final position as the music came to a halting stop. He was curled around himself. The only parts of him you could see were his skin and the top of his head. 

A Gerbera Daisy blooming through the rain. Sehyoon stood in a daze and clapped with the audience. The performer stood up and bowed, he walked off stage and took the color with him. 

***  
The minute Sehyoon got home he stripped off his suit jacket, ripped off the bow tie and rolled up the sleeves of his button up. He rushed to get a blank canvas and mixed pigment into his palette. 

He brought his brush up to the canvas, smile firm on his face. 

The painting ended up in the pile with the others, already lost to a block Sehyoon didn’t know how to push through. 

He thought the inspiration would last, he was given 30 minutes before his strokes started to halt and what he was looking at didn’t inspire anything in him. It was monochrome for all he could care, the paint had been shades of pink but to him it looked sad and gray. 

He changed into sweats and flopped into bed, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep but thoughts of the dancer flitted around. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way he had felt when he had seen him. 

He thought about how after he hadn’t had the chance to talk to him, but he had seen him out in the lobby of the gallery. He was in a clean suit, light make-up on, and his hair pulsing color back into Sehyoon’s world. 

The boy had looked over at him, probably feeling him staring, and smiled brightly at Sehyoon. His vision filled and the gray had slipped away. He didn’t know why but something had struck inside him. 

Just like with Donghun and Junhee, like with Yuchan. The same as when his mother would play the piano and he would paint. That had mixes of purple and pink. Of safety and love and passion. 

Sehyoon got up from his bed, bleary eyed, and grabbed the program from the event. He looked through the list of dancers and matched a name with the performance. 

The pastel pink boy’s name was Kim Byeongkwan, he was a teacher at the ballet academy. Sehyoon stared at his picture for longer than he would have liked to admit. He hoped that the color would come back, but it never did. He resigned himself to it, he laid back down in bed and clutched the program to his chest. 

He whispered the dancer’s name as he fell asleep. 

***

Sehyoon was working around the gallery when he stopped dead in his tracks. Byeongkwan was standing and looking at one of the more popular restorations. It was one of Sehyoon’s. 

The boy had a smile etched on his face. His presence in the room was light and airy and Sehyoon felt the color creep back into his vision. 

He hadn’t seen Byeongkwan since the night of the performance, it had been a couple weeks and he was still left thinking about the boy. 

He swallowed and made a decision. 

He walked over to where Byeongkwan was standing and stood next to him, he silently waited until the man looked over at him. He smiled at him curiously and Sehyoon’s vision burst into a spectrum of pinks and reds and almost purples. 

Sehyoon stared at Byeongkwan. Said man looked like he was about to laugh before Sehyoon shook his head and looked down at the ground. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stand here creepily. I just saw you eyeing up the artwork.”

Byeongkwan smiled wider at him and stuck out his hand. “Hi, I’m Byeongkwan. You’re not being creepy I promise.”

Sehyoon shook the hand and sputtered out. “I know!”

Byeongkwan raised an eyebrow at him. “You know you’re not being creepy or…”

Sehyoon shook his head. “No, I know your name.” Sehyoon saw the look on the other’s face and rushed out his next words. “I saw you dance at the event a couple weeks ago, you were in the program.” 

Byeongkwan looked surprised but happy at the admission. “Oh! So you were interested enough to find my name?”

Sehyoon laughed, a bit embarrassed. “I have to admit you really captured me with your performance. It inspired me. Well at least for a little bit.” 

Byeongkwan blushed a bit. High on his cheeks the color bloomed. It was more pink that Sehyoon let wash over him. 

“Thank you, I usually don’t get compliments like that for my choreography, especially when it’s modern and not ballet like the companies.” Byeongkwan admitted. 

Sehyoon scoffed. “It was brilliant and people are stupid if they don’t think so.” 

Byeongkwan looked down at the floor, Sehyoon could see a smile spread across his face. When he looked up his eyes were shining. 

Sehyoon didn’t normally think of the color brown as an exciting color, but Byeongkwan’s eyes were challenging their position in Sehyoon’s opinion. 

They stood awkwardly for a minute before Sehyoon realized he never introduced himself. “My name is Sehyoon by the way.”

Byeongkwan smirked at him and winked. “I know.” 

Sehyoon’s eyes got wide, thinking it was a joke he laughed before he saw the other’s face. 

“I saw your painting at the event.” Byeongkwan looked back at the one in front of him. There was no way he hadn’t noticed the plaque stating that it was one of Sehyoon’s restorations. 

“Your boss saw me eyeing it, I couldn’t stop standing there trying to figure out the emotions that it was giving me.” Byeongkwan’s smile dropped for a second, Sehyoon almost missed it. 

“I think whatever it made me feel I brought into my dance.” Byeongkwan touched his shoulder. “You inspired me too, that night.” 

It was Sehyoon’s turn to blush now. His whole body flushed at the soft touch of the other’s hand. He looked up at him, saw the way the light played off his hair. He wanted to run his fingers through it, watch it soak up the sun in his mother’s kitchen.  
It was silly to think these things, but he’d always been fast with his feelings. “Wait, but how did you know my name?”

Byeongkwan laughed. “Remember I said your boss saw me basically crying at your painting. She pointed me out to you.” 

Sehyoon nodded his head at the answer. He stared back up at the restoration. He was flooding with cotton candy soft, with silk petals, with a desire pulsing through him. 

Byeongkwan held up a hand and pointed to the name on the plaque and smirked at him. 

Sehyoon let out a small laugh and started to talk. “Stop me if you already know this but…”

Byeongkwan threw his head back as he laughed. “I should let you know that I know nothing about art, well art in the painting context.” 

Sehyoon smiled and gestured to the bench behind them. Byeongkwan sat down and put his hands behind him and leaned back. He leaned forward a bit and turned to look at the man beside him. 

He finished his sentence and then another and another. Byeongkwan sat with him as he explained the context of the painting, the history, the paints used in it. 

The man sat and listened, never once bored of what Sehyoon was saying. 

***

Byeongkwan was a beacon of light, he threw splashes of color into Sehyoon’s vision everywhere they went. 

He would take Sehyoon’s hand and run with him down sidewalks, dodging passersby as they rushed to lunch. 

He laughed at Sehyoon’s jokes, which most people didn’t. He understood the thoughts that ran through Sehyoon’s mind when even his best friends didn’t. 

He gave Sehyoon enough push to start painting things that he liked. They were small, tiny canvases for the tiniest of inspiration but it was a start. 

Sehyoon used to wake up to grays and slate and now he woke up and color would slowly seep into his world. The minute he saw Byeongkwan though the colors brightened and turned from washed out to neon. 

They sometimes blinded him but he never wanted them to leave. 

Byeongkwan was busy with his company but he always made time for Sehyoon, he would go see movies with him, they would make commentary on the cinematography. 

He got him free tickets to his shows. Sehyoon would bring sketch pads and pencils with him when he went. He would try to catch inspiration like smoke in his hands when he watched Byeongkwan dance. 

He wasn’t always inspired, but it was slowly coming back to him, waves that snuck up onto the shore of his mind. 

Byeongkwan would sit with him at the museum and let him ramble about the history of the paintings in the room, let Sehyoon teach him about the people that made them. 

“The art you make is beautiful.” Byeongkwan told him one day as they made their way along the beach. The younger had his shoelaces wrapped around his fingers and his shoes thrown over his shoulder, Sehyoon held his at his side. 

Sehyoon looked up at him. His hair was no longer a pastel pink but a honey blonde. It made Sehyoon want to run fingers through it, made him want to see if Byeongkwan smelled sweet. 

The color made his skin and eyes even more beautiful. The palette that he made was all hues of brown and blondes. Sehyoon never associated the color with anything good, now it described the feelings he held in these moments. 

Browns were butterflies in his stomach. They were soft touches and softer eyes. Browns were like soaking in a hot bath and feeling your whole body stretch. 

Byeongkwan’s eyes shined a light brown in the sun and Sehyoon felt like slipping. 

“How would you know, you’ve only seen one of my originals and that one was seeping with desperation and sadness.” Sehyoon laughed a bit at himself as he said it. He threw an arm around Byeongkwan’s shoulders.

Byeongkwan leaned in close. He did smell sweat. It caused a contradiction in the rhythm of Sehyoon’s heart. 

“I liked it thought. It made me feel something. Most paintings don’t do that for me.” Byeongkwan looked up at him with his big eyes. “Normally they just make me feel overwhelmed because I don’t understand what they’re trying to tell me.”

Sehyoon smiled softly at him. “They don’t have to mean anything, they can tell you whatever you are feeling.” Sehyoon scoffed and brushed his foot against the sand as they were walking, kicking it up a bit to stick to the tops of his feet. 

“I hate pretentious people who think you have to understand a painting or know it’s deep meaning to appreciate it.” Sehyoon looked up at the sky. “It’s not about having the smartest or deepest answer, it’s all about emotion. What does the painting evoke in you?” 

Byeongkwan laughed softly. “And what if the painting evokes boredom?”

Sehyoon laughed loudly. “Then you move onto the next one and ignore the people telling you you just don’t understand it. Not every artist intended for their work to have some philosophical meeting, they might have really just liked sunflowers.”

The younger looked at him curiously. Sehyoon could have sworn he moved in just that much closer. “What were the intentions behind the piece you had at the gallery?”

Sehyoon scoffed. “Anger, frustration, a feeling like I was lost. I hated that painting but it was the least hated out of everything I had.”

Byeongkwan looked shocked and sad as he stopped them from walking more. “Sehyoon, that piece was beautiful. I know I’m not an expert or do I know art at all but if it’s supposed to evoke emotion in you that piece was…” He stopped and looked out at the water. “It was more than I’ve felt in a very long time.”

Sehyoon wasn’t expecting the confession from Byeongkwan. The younger seemed like he had things like feelings and emotions to give for days but he was learning that the other might be more similar to him in many ways. 

Byeongkwan’s eyes looked far away. The breeze blew honey strands into his honey brown eyes and Sehyoon felt like he was slowly falling. He waited as the other looked like he was about to speak. 

“Before I started dancing I was a very lonely child. Many people didn’t like me, they thought I was annoying and loud. They couldn’t stand to be around me, I was constantly flitting from one place to another.” Byeongkwan grabbed a hold of one of Sehyoon’s hands and squeezed as he kept speaking. Sehyoon listened, all his attention on this beautiful man. 

“When I started dancing in high school it was like a way to let everything out. My feelings, my anger towards others, the energy that I tried to hold inside. It showed me how to channel it. The problem was that now it is my only coping mechanism for real feelings.” Byeongkwan laughed when he finished, but nothing was funny.  
“You know it’s amazing how you channel so much into your art and I do the same with my dancing.” He shook his head.

Sehyoon smiled slowly as they continued walking, their hands locked together at their sides. “Yeah it is.”

He felt like Byeongkwan was pulling him out from whatever deep dark he had been it. He was salvation and Sehyoon felt like he could finally breathe. Byeongkwan’s beauty, his grace, the way he expressed himself. Sehyoon couldn’t help the cloud of feelings that came over him. 

Purple for the blanket his baby sister was wrapped in when he first saw her. Green for when Junhee, Donghun and him would run through grass and fields. Red for the dress his mother wore at his graduation. And so many other colors that blended together to describe the utter devastation of what he felt for Byeongkwan. 

***

Byeongkwan led Sehyoon out of monochrome and darkness into such a beautiful world. He was truly starting to paint originals again. Even his pieces for work were better, more detailed, more vibrant. 

He still hadn’t created something he could be proud of but he was getting there, getting closer to whatever goal he had set for himself. 

He finally reached it after him and Byeongkwan had been friends for half a year. Six months into their relationship and while Sehyoon had developed feelings for his friend he still kept the relationship platonic. He wasn’t sure he was ready. 

Byeongkwan had come to his apartment for dinner one night when everything came to a stand still for Sehyoon. He had come to a decision, maybe not right here and now but he would tell Byeongkwan soon. 

Byeongkwan was bundled up in a sweater that night, blue jeans tight around his legs, the colors dark but still vibrant in Sehyoon’s vision. 

The younger had a glass of wine in his hand and was watching Sehyoon clean up the kitchen. There was soft music playing in the background. He was swaying to it, his eyes slightly drooping as the sounds crescendo-ed.

He looked like he wanted to dance. A smile was light on his face and his eyes finally closed. Sehyoon watched him in awe. He was just standing there, swaying, but he was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid his eyes on. 

Byeongkwan eventually put his glass down and walked toward the center of Sehyoon’s living room. It was open, nothing in the way of the hardwood floor. Nothing to stop the other from taking off his shoes and walking to the radio. 

He hummed to himself as he chose a new channel. Sehyoon wiped his hands dry and came around to lean against the kitchen counter. He watched the other with rapt attention. 

Byeongkwan finally settled on a song and then turned around to smile at him. He swayed his hips and then started to dance. Not just moving slightly to the beat but an actual dance. 

He was magnificent and Sehyoon itched to capture the moment. He grabbed a sketch pad that was on the dining table and as Byeongkwan poured out his emotions through his body Sehyoon sketched his into paper. 

Sehyoon stopped after getting an outline and just kept watching the younger. Finally the other opened his eyes fully and looked to Sehyoon. He walked over to him gracefully and grabbed his hands and pulled him in. 

Sehyoon wanted to protest but he couldn’t. Not with Byeongkwan so warm and close, smelling of citrus and a hint of something sweet. 

He leaned his head against the other’s hair and brought his hands around his waist. Byeongkwan squeezed his arms around his neck and pushed as close as he could. They swayed across the hardwood and didn’t say a word. 

Sehyoon closed his eyes. Splashes of color made their way across his vision. Everyone he’d ever felt. He felt light and like he couldn’t find a color to describe the moment he was in. That was okay, he thought. 

He danced with Byeongkwan into the night and let himself completely fall in love. 

***

After Byeongkwan left that night Sehyoon sat at his easel and painted. He painted until the black of the night started to turn a dusty pink and then a bright yellow. The sun rose and Sehyoon painted. 

When he was finished he stood back. He had used every color he had felt the past year and it turned into a palette that showed who he was as a person and who Byeongkwan was. 

The painting was beautiful, Sehyoon could admit that. He had finally done something he could be proud of. He created a piece that he felt confident in, that showed his talent. 

He wanted to show Byeongkwan immediately, but waited. He still wasn’t quite ready. He dated the painting and placed it gently in wrapping and put it away. 

***  
Byeongkwan and him spent the rest of the year together in a comfortable friendship. Sehyoon created piece after piece but nothing came close to the one he had created after the night Byeongkwan had danced for him. 

They were all inspired by different things but the colors never stood out as much as he wanted, they were never as vibrant or emotional. 

His boss was thrilled though, she had told him it was some of the best work she had seen in years. She threw a gallery for him when he had collected enough to have his own show. 

***

The gallery was on the anniversary of the first night he had seen Byeongkwan. The other agreed to perform that night, doing his best to create a show that evoked the same feelings his paintings did. 

Sehyoon stood around the gallery that night shaking hands and talking in tiring conversations. He was standing in a group of truly boring art critiques when he felt a hand slide up his shoulder. He turned around to see the younger man at his side. 

Sehyoon gaped at the way Byeongkwan looked. His hair was dark now, almost black in the right light. Sehyoon hadn’t been able to him in a week and the hair was new. 

Byeongkwan smirked at him and let Sehyoon run a hand through it. It made the older rethink the color altogether. He thought about how he had never had favorite colors until Byeongkwan came along. 

Now he knew that what his favorites were whatever color the younger had adorned himself with. He met him and it was pink, soft and charming. Then it had been honey and brown, shining and glowing like a crown. There had been a short time where he had blue, Sehyoon had felt like the tides and Byeongkwan was the moon. 

Now it was black and it was almost overwhelming because black wasn’t a color, it absorbed every other color around it. That was what Byeongkwan did for him, absorbed every color and then threw it back out in a spectrum of light, of rainbows glittering in his vision. 

He looked down at the suit the other was wearing, a deep plum that looked great against the black of his hair and his pale skin. Sehyoon pulled him into a hug and whispered how beautiful he looked in his ear. 

When they pulled away Byeongkwan straightened the lapels of Sehyoon’s suit and looked at his eyes. The younger’s glistened, like tears were threatening to fall. 

“The paintings are beautiful Sehyoon. I feel like when I see them I’m truly seeing you.” Byeongkwan cupped his cheek with his hand and Sehyoon leaned into the warmth. 

“Thank you. Thank you for coming and performing tonight. I don’t know if I could do this without you.” Sehyoon shook his head and looked at the floor. 

Byeongkwan lifted his head back up with two fingers on his chin. “Of course you could, but I’m happy to be here and help.”

Sehyoon took his hand and interlaced their fingers. He didn’t tell Byeongkwan that the piece that started it all was still sitting wrapped in his apartment. 

He just walked Byeongkwan around the gallery looking at what he had created. 

***

Byeongkwan performed that night, beautifully. His dance was uplifting but also devastating to Sehyoon’s emotions. He wanted to rush the stage and kiss the younger but held it all in. He watched Byeongkwan put everything he had into the dance and then at the end stood with tears in his eyes and clapped his hands raw. 

***

That night Sehyoon drove home and grabbed the painting from his apartment and drove back over to Byeongkwan’s He wasn’t there often but he knew the way. 

When he knocked on the other’s door, he heard Byeongkwan cuss at what he assumed was him slamming into furniture and waited for the door to open laughing. 

Byeongkwan opened the door breathless, his eyes surprised at Sehyoon at his door. 

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Byeongkwan smiled at the other, seemed happy to see him. 

Sehyoon just shrugged and asked if he could come in. He was still in his suit, but he had shed his jacket. Byeongkwan was in shorts and a t-shirt. Sehyoon wanted to bundle him up to his chest.  
“I wanted to give you something.” Sehyoon whispered as he walked into the other’s apartment. He placed the painting in front of Byeongkwan once they were in his living room. 

Byeongkwan smirked at him and went for the painting until he noticed where Sehyoon was looking. 

Sehyoon had looked up into the rest of the living room and saw something that shocked him. It was the first painting he had given his boss, the one that was surprisingly sold at the event where he first saw Byeongkwan. 

It was framed beautifully and was hanging in plain view for any guests to see. This was the first time he had noticed it, was sure it hadn’t been hanging up when he had come over a couple weeks ago. That painting had been sold a year ago. Apparently to Kim Byeongkwan the night he had splashed color back into Sehyoon’s world. 

Byeongkwan blushed and coughed. 

Sehyoon looked back at him stunned. “You... “

Byeongkwan brushed a hand through his hair. “I bought it that night, I told you that it inspired me.” He looked down and wrung his hands together. “I hadn’t been doing well, my choreography had been dull and my boss wasn’t happy with me. That night I saw your painting and something just clicked and has been clicking ever since.” 

Sehyoon sat on the couch, mouth wide open at Byeongkwan’s confession. The younger kept talking. “I bought it and it reminds me of how you made me feel that night when I didn’t even know you. I showed up at the gallery that next week just hoping I’d get another glimpse at another piece of work you have done.” 

He scooted a little closer to Sehyoon and put a hand on his knee. “I didn’t expect to have you come up and talk to me. I was thrilled. My boss said the next day that she had never seen choreography like I had produced that week after.”

Sehyoon put a hand on the one on his knee. He gestured to the painting he brought in. “Open it please. I painted it the night we danced in my living room.” 

Byeongkwan reached for it and ripped the brown paper off. It wasn’t a big canvas but enough that he held it with two hands and placed it across his lap. When he saw it for the first time he gasped. 

It was a silhouette of the younger. He was posed dancing, but instead of the living room around him he was dancing on a secluded beach at twilight. The ocean was a blue that made your soul ache. There were stars blinking in the sky and a hue of purples and pinks where the clouds were disappearing in the night sky. The sand was illuminated and matched the honey brown of Byeongkwan’s hair in the painting. 

His silhouette wasn’t smiling, his eyes were closed, but you could feel happiness radiating off of him. But the painting, oh the painting, all Byeongkwan could feel was a longing so deep it caused him to lose his breath. 

The younger brushed a soft hand across his face in the painting and then looked up at Sehyoon. “Yoonie this is…” He sucked in a breath, tears were forming in his eyes. “This is stunning, I can’t believe this is me. This can’t be me.” 

Sehyoon shrugged. “It’s how I see you. How you make me feel. Before you I had no inspiration, everything was black and white. You came in and life, painting, art had meaning again. You brought color back into my world.” 

Byeongkwan was now crying as he hugged Sehyoon to him. The older heard his name whispered from the younger’s lips and made a rash decision. He kissed him. 

Byeongkwan surged up into his lips for a blissful second but to Sehyoon’s shock pulled away and pushed at his shoulders. 

“Sehyoon, Yoonie, please I can’t.” Byeongkwan was whispering it but the words didn’t seem real to the older. He was so sure. 

“I thought…” He said out loud as tears continued to stream down Byeongkwan’s face. 

The younger made a coughing sound and Sehyoon heard the breath in his throat catch. He pushed his forehead against Sehyoon’s. 

“I do, but I can’t. I’m so sorry.” Byeongkwan was shaking his head and pulling away. 

Sehyoon didn’t understand. “I don’t understand what do you mean?”

Byeongkwan looked down at the painting in his lap, it was a good thing Sehyoon had waterproofed it, Byeongkwan’s tears were splashing against it. 

“I told you I’m not good with all this, the emotions and… I dance to get it out. I can’t be what you need me to be. I don’t know if I can give you what you deserve. I’m not worthy of this, the love you are showing me.” Byeongkwan was shaking his head, Sehyoon grabbed his head and pulled so he was looking him in the eyes. 

“Baby, you have given me so much. You are my salvation, you literally made it so my world was more than it had ever been. I can’t say how much you deserve. You are so fucking incredible. I felt like I was a waste before you, now I’m… so much more.” Sehyoon wanted to say more but Byeongkwan was sobbing now. 

He pulled away from the older and stood up. He was back-dropped by the painting he had bought of Sehyoon’s. “I just can’t. I’m so sorry.” 

He wiped at his eyes and held Sehyoon’s painting of himself to his chest. “The way you show me in this painting is now who I am, I can’t be this person.” 

Sehyoon whispered. “But you already are.” He understood though, there was no convincing Byeongkwan, not right now. He stood up and pulled the other close, he brushed away hair from his eyes and kissed his forehead. 

Byeongkwan tried to push the new painting into Sehyoon’s hands but he wouldn’t let him. He walked away and out the door leaving the younger standing in his living room with Sehyoon’s heart in his hands. 

***

Sehyoon spent a month without Byeongkwan, the color slowly faded from his world but his inspiration didn’t stop. It was just all black and white, misery in art. 

He got tickets from his boss to a ballet program in the city, he went even though he knew it would hurt. He watched Byeongkwan dance, he watched and saw the pain in the younger’s movements. He saw the anger and frustration, the hopelessness and he couldn’t stand it. 

***

He set up the gallery with fairy lights and sweet smelling candles. He dimmed the lights and and shooed his boss from the building. He looked around and made sure everything was in its place. He looked at his phone to see the time. The other should be there soon. 

He was surprised when the younger had agreed to meet him, had hoped that it meant something. 

He looked up as the door to the gallery opened. Byeongkwan looked as beautiful as ever, his hair was a beautiful natural brown. It was the color of leaves in Autumn, a color that called comfort to his bones. 

He looked sad, his face portrayed that he was scared of why he was here. 

Sehyoon walked up to him but did not touch him even though he itched to brush a hand through the boy’s hair. He didn’t say anything just lead the younger into one of the rooms of the gallery. 

He told Byeongkwan to close his eyes as they walked in. He turned on the fairy lights and made sure that everything could be seen before he pulled the other’s hands away. 

Byeongkwan looked up and Sehyoon heard a gasp leave his lips. There were paintings everywhere in the room. Paintings that were clearly done years before and plenty that were brand new. 

Sehyoon cleared his throat and started to talk. “I needed to show you what you had done for me by just being you, by being who you were even on your bad days.” Sehyoon needed Byeongkwan to see that he wasn’t his salvation, that he made Sehyoon have enough worth and inspiration to be his own salvation. That Byeongkwan brightened up everything. 

“These paintings were done in the worst years of my life, through depression in college and through the last couple years. They were terrible, nothing blended and no color seemed to capture my attention. But then you came into my life.” Byeongkwan led the other to the paintings in the middle of the room. 

“These are after I met you.” Sehyoon let Byeongkwan see them. The first ones were still dull but you could see color peeking in, and then byeongkwan really saw the others. They were vibrant and bright, happiness and longing and joy filled the air around him. 

Even the ones that were done in black and gray had life in them. In the end it wasn’t truly about color, it was about the way they pulsed life out into the world. 

Sehyoon pointed out one painting that made Byeongkwan want to cry. “I painted this the day that you came to me and laid out all your insecurities and worries.” It was a beautiful painting, where it was sad it had hope. It had strength. 

Byeongkwan knelt down to look at it better. Sehyoon spoke softly behind him. “See, you don’t have to hide from me or be some superhuman that is never sad, even when you feel broken I still find you absolutely stunning.” 

Sehyoon needed him to see that every part of Byeongkwan was beautiful to him, no matter what it looked like or how manifested. Sehyoon wanted him, all of him and he showed him through his work. 

Byeongkwan stood up and looked at the last paintings. He finally spoke. “When did you do these?” He turned to Sehyoon, tears in his eyes. 

Sehyoon walked closer to them. “That night I left your apartment, I realized something that night. That no matter what, you would always inspire me. I’d never had that, it was always fleeting. But whether you are with me or just in my mind you still give me the strength to push forward.” Sehyoon grabbed his hand and kissed his palm. “You don’t need to worry that your feelings will push me away or that you won’t be enough because it’s not possible for you to be anything other than more than I deserve.”

Byeongkwan let out a sob and Sehyoon let out a small laugh. 

Byeongkwan cupped his cheek and whispered. “I feel the same about you. I just didn’t want to lose you because I couldn’t be the happy me or the interesting me.” 

Sehyoon pulled him close, foreheads touching. “I want every part of you, for as long as I can have you.” 

The lights in the room glinted off them as they swayed into a hug and Byeongkwan whispered into Sehyoon’s ear. “Can we have a redo of our first kiss?”

Sehyoon let out a laugh that was half a sob. He leaned back and cupped Byeongkwan’s face. “Yes.” He said as he leaned in. 

It was the feeling of hardwood floors against your bare feet, of the smell of Autumn, of the way the wind caressed your face. It was the light brown of Byeongkwan’s hair and every other color Sehyoon could name.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed. Please leave kudos and comments. I love talking to y'all. Also hop on over to my twitter "yoonseh92" for updates. I'm not sure which song is going to be next. Possible hold me while you wait. Thank you <333


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